


A Little Glue

by bubbleslayer



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s02e11 Adrift, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-07
Updated: 2011-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubbleslayer/pseuds/bubbleslayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events in Adrift Ianto seeks out Gwen to make sure she's okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Glue

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my LiveJournal

Ianto sighed as he climbed out of his car. It was cold out and raining, neither of which were unheard of in Cardiff, but still. He'd much rather be at his flat, settled in front of the telly watching professional football, instead of half-way across town at a public park watching grown men run around pretending to be professional footballers.

He looked for Gwen and spotted her quickly. He didn't know anyone else in Cardiff who had an umbrella that sported Munch's _The Scream_. He walked over and ducked under the umbrella with her. She startled a little at the sudden intrusion, but recovered quickly, giving him one of her big smiles, and the umbrella to hold. Her eyes were clear, and she seemed genuinely happy. That surprised him. He'd come here to try to help her deal with everything, to apply some glue that would hopefully aid in putting some of her pieces back together.

He remembered how shattered he'd felt the first time he'd gone out to that island. How, for just a few moments, he'd actually considered telling Jack about Lisa, asking him to take her there, to help her. But then reality had sunk in. Those people were being helped sure, but not healed. They could never be healed. And back then, well, Ianto had believed with every fiber of his being that Lisa would be healed, and he'd still get to live his happily ever after.

But Gwen seemed alright. She looked whole. She seemed well rested, and her eyes didn't have those shadows that crept in when she was depressed. Ianto was honestly at a bit of a loss.

He ran his hand over his face and hair to remove the rain that had accumulated on his walk over and flicked it away. He drew a breath to ask her how she was doing, but she beat him to it.

"Good afternoon Ianto. How are you this wonderful Cardiff Saturday?"

Ianto laughed. Being the only two Torchwood members who were native to Cardiff, the city and it's weather had become something of a private joke between them.

"Fine Gwen, just fine. I just couldn't bring myself to sit at home on this lovely day. Thought I'd come out and see how Rhys' team was fairing."

She nodded as if that was the most sensible thing in the world, but the look in her eyes, and the blush on her cheeks let Ianto know that she was ready to get down to business.

"Look, Ianto, I'm really sorry for...um...interrupting you two. I never even thought about you being, well, indisposed."

He blushed himself and turned away. He'd known they were taking a risk of being caught every time they got intimate in the Hub, but that had only added to the excitement. The reality of actually being caught wasn't as much fun though. It could have been worse though, it could have been Owen that had caught them.

"It's okay Gwen. We know that's always a possibility. I'm a little embarrassed yeah, but I'm not ashamed about what we do. I'm sorry he said those things to you though, they were uncalled for."

She let out an unladylike snort and shook her head.

"Oh, don't worry about that. I caught on to Jack's little distancing trick a long time ago. He says stuff like that to keep the other person off balance. I know he didn't really mean it."

Ianto smiled to himself, glad she wasn't looking at him and didn't see it. She was partly right, Jack did bring up sex to keep others off-footed, but he'd meant what he'd said to her. He understood that a part of Jack wanted Gwen in that way, but didn't really know how Gwen felt about it. Hell, he wasn't even sure how he felt about it himself.

"Well, it was still rude. You were dealing with enough at the time. You sure you're okay?"

"I'm okay Ianto, really. Last night....Rhys listened to me, let me talk it out. All of it."

He sighed, "good, you're lucky to have him. I was all alone when I found out. It was....difficult."

He felt Gwen slip an arm around his waist and he allowed himself to be pulled into her side.

"Did Jack tell you, or did you have to figure it out on your own too?"

Ianto didn't miss the slight sound of pique in her voice. Maybe she wasn't all the way okay, at least not yet.

"Jack told me. And before you get upset, it's not that he told me and not you because he didn't trust you. Jack really didn't have anything for me to do when he first hired me, so one of my first duties was to take care of supplies and staff out there. Jack had been doing it alone for years, and well, you know how organized Jack isn't."

He was glad to see a small smile tip the corner's of Gwen's mouth.

"He took me out there, showed me around, explained it all. It was so soon after Canary Wharf, and I was....was still trying to save Lisa. That place, those people, they found the last intact piece of my heart and they shattered it."

Ianto ran his hand over his face again, flicking away more moisture, this time it was tears that he didn't even try to hide. He hadn't planned to go on like this, he wasn't there to talk about himself after all, but Gwen always seemed to get him to open up somehow. Maybe he'd be able to apply glue to a few of his own pieces.

"I had to mentally file it all away though. I had to, my sanity was on a slender enough thread as it was back then."

He risked a look at Gwen, but instead of the feared anger and resentment, or worse, pity he was used to seeing at any mention of Lisa, he saw only compassion and understanding. Her own face was wet with tears now and Ianto reached out to brush them away.

"I'm sorry, you know. For setting you on the trail. I didn't want you to go through that, but, I couldn't see you ever giving up."

Gwen laughed lightly.

"Oh, you're right about that. And it wasn't you that put me on the trail. That was all Andy. The thing I regret most about all of this, is that I may have lost my friend. I don't think he'll ever forgive me for shutting him out."

He nodded. Ianto understood how hard it could be to keep a lover when you worked for Torchwood. But friends? They were even harder. With a lover, there was a deeper level of trust, or at least there should be. Friendships were often more tenuous by nature. The lies and secrecy required for their work usually tore friendships apart like tissue paper in a hurricane.

"I had a mate. A good mate. His name was Todd. We'd been inseparable since primary school. God, we'd been through so much together. I haven't spoken to him since about two weeks after I started at Torchwood One. That fast, we drifted apart. I still miss him."

"Andy, he asked me if I could get him a job with Torchwood. I told him yes, just to shut him up, yeah? But then, he figured out that I'd never planned to talk to Jack about him. Oh, the pain in his voice Ianto. He just doesn't get it. Ever since I started, he's said that I've changed, that I'm not the same person. Why can't he understand that I'm protecting him, that I don't want it to happen to him to?"

Ianto ducked and place a kiss on her head.

"Call him, tell him that. Tell him that he's important to you, and you haven't changed so much that you wouldn't still do everything in your power to protect him."

Gwen sighed and focused on the sight of her husband running up field, passing the football to a man who looked twice his age and half his size. Sensing she needed a change in topic Ianto waived a hand at the collective men on the field.

"How on Earth do they do this every weekend? Half of them look like prime candidates for heart attacks from climbing a flight of stairs."

Gwen laughed then, a full and happy laugh.

"Oh, trust me, it's not every weekend. And Rhys is going to be whining about aching muscles and sore joints for days. But it makes him happy."

He could see that. Rhys was huffing and puffing as he chased the ball past them, but had a smile on his face big enough to light up a room. He felt Gwen tighten her arm around his waist and he pulled his attention away from the game.

"Ianto, why did you leave that GPS device for me?"

"You and Jack are the two most stubborn people I know. I could see that neither of you were going to give any ground on the subject, and I was pretty sure that it could only end with you leaving Torchwood.

"When Jack told me about it, he was still testing my limits. Trying to see how much I could handle. And, in hindsight, I think it was something that he didn't want to carry alone anymore. He saw how much it affected me, how much it hurt, but he offered me no words, no apology. It took me a long time to forgive him for that, and he knows it. But once I had, I realized that it also showed me what kind of man he really is."

"And what kind of man is that Ianto," Gwen asked, the pique back in her voice.

He turned Gwen to face him and waited for her to look him in the eye.

"A good man. A kind man. Torchwood One would have simply killed those people and burned the bodies. Jack gives them a safe haven, gives them the best possible life he can despite everything that's happened to them. I called him a monster once. But I was so wrong Gwen. He's not perfect, no, but he's not monster. He's just a man doing the best he possibly can with what he has."

"Then why didn't he just tell me? Why didn't he trust me to see that too?"

He pulled her into a tight hug and whispered into her hair, "for the same reason you don't tell Andy about what you do."

She gasped and pulled back from him.

"Gwen, it wasn't about you, it was about him. Try to look at it from his perspective for a moment. He was trying to protect you from the pain, the heartbreak. He was afraid that, like me, it would take you a long time to forgive him, if you did at all. He didn't want to loose you."

There. There was a piece he could apply some glue to and settle back into place.

He handed her back the umbrella then and turned away, but her hand on his arm stopped him.

"You took a risk Ianto, leaving that for me. Jack figured out pretty quickly that you were the one that pointed me out there."

He sighed. He didn't have the energy or inclination to explain the intricacies of his relationship with Jack to her.

"Gwen, Jack forgave me for keeping a Cyberwoman in the basement. He forgave me for betraying him and opening the rift. He even forgave me for giving him decaf the time I ran out of regular coffee and didn't want to run to the shop. I trusted him to forgive me for this. And he did. You need to trust him too. To protect you, from both aliens and yourself. Don't ever stop questioning him, because I'm sure as hell not saying he's always right, but you have to trust that he'll never do anything to deliberately hurt you. And that he'll always forgive you when you don't."

He left her then, climbed back into the car and turned the heater on full blast. He thought about going back to his couch and his telly, but at the first corner her turned left, away from his flat, and towards home instead.

end


End file.
